


Trade All Your Heroes in for Ghosts

by akitron



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, between him and remus, god his life is trag, i overidentify with him somehow, sirius black is my first real fictional love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:48:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akitron/pseuds/akitron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gave a dry sob and tried to recall his happiest memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trade All Your Heroes in for Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago and figured I may as well post it

It was cold and so dark in his cell, suffocating brick walls as black as his name, his heart.  
He traced his tattoo proclaiming him as prisoner 29936, the black-green letters stark against his pale skin, blue veins.   
Sirius squeezed his tired eyes shut blocking the screaming. Always screaming in his mind, in his cell, outside his cell. Dementors passed by and he was stricken cold, only kept sane by his innocence.  
Innocent, innocent, I'm innocent became his prayer. Nothing could take that from him, not this cell, this prison, or Peter Pettigrew. 

He gave a dry sob and tried to recall his happiest memories.

The smell of grass beneath his paws. Remus smiling in the sunlight, his hair golden and grey. James passing him a quaffle, a smile lighting up his handsome face. Laughing with Remus at another one of James' failed attempts at wooing Lily. James and Lily's wedding. Honeysuckle in the air, fairy lights in the sky. Intelligent brown eyes and a scrunched up nose. Meeting Harry. Harry laughing. Harry crying. Harry-

Sirius could hardly breathe, Harry, who he'd seen the night before his arrest, on the run from the aurors he'd worked side by side with. Wizards and witches he'd gone to school with who he was hiding from. 

Sirius tried to recall the phantom warmth of holding Harry for the last time.

"Take my bike, it'll be faster," he said, climbing off quickly. Hagrid blinked at him, holding the small baby firmly in his large arms.  
"Just let me hold Harry, " he begged, "Just for a moment."   
Hagrid hesitated.  
"Hagrid, I need to- please. Just for a minute."  
Hagrid relented, passing the baby to Sirius who took the boy into his arms and kissed the top of his dark head, breathing in the scent of baby powder and ash. He traced the awful scar on his Harry's forehead ever so gently and kissed each one of his fluttering eyelids, the last caress to his scar.  
"I love you," he whispered fiercely. "They'll lie and say I don't, but I do. I love you more than anything, everything. Grow up to be better than your father. Better and braver than me." He kissed him again, relinquished him to Hagrid. "Be careful with him." He turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could away from them and what used to be his life.

Sirius dragged his hand across the rough brick, scraping it raw, red and bleeding.  
Four years and three months since then. 

He felt a chill to his bones and the screams outside his cell were getting louder and louder.  
Innocent, I'm innocent, he repeated to himself. Words that became nothing and everything; a litany tattooed on his heart.  
He would wait as long as it took to see that little boy with the green eyes and lightning scar.


End file.
